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By Ryan Hildebrand

Photo by Pete Smith. Click on image to view larger version.We recently received a reference question regarding our copy of The Farewell Address of Gen. George Washington (Keene, N.H.: Printed by John Prentiss, 1812). The question had nothing to do with the work but with the possibility that our copy might be bound in boards covered with sheets from a supposedly suppressed edition of John Cleland’s 1748 novel Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (commonly known as Fanny Hill). And in fact, our copy is bound thus. (It is not uncommon to find “printed waste” in early bookbindings. Paper, being an expensive commodity, was reused whenever possible in the production of books.)

The text of the sheet used in our binding is not too racy. We have, for example, “After a sufficient length of dialogue, my bedfellow left me to my rest, and I fell asleep, through pure weariness from the violent emotions I had been led into… .” What preceded this passage, however, is best not discussed here.

So, here we have the farewell address of the first president of the United States coupled with the first modern erotic novel. It’s an interesting pairing.